Staff
meals at Deux Cheminées seethe with undeniable Germanic
undercurrents. Even Blank’s seafood rendition of Philadelphia pepperpot – with
turtle, shrimp, oysters and pumpkin – succumbs to spätzle, small dumplings scraped into the simmering pot. Blank’s love of
soups and einlagen -- their accompaniments of noodles, dumplings, Reibele (grated dough) and meaty, ravioli-like Maultaschen -- is stoked by some
twelve dozen German and Austrian cookbooks.

The Austrian Joy of Cooking

Prato’s book helped Blank settle a dispute with Chef Louis Szathmary
about a dinner honoring Ludwig van Beethoven. At issue was whether the
small squares of a thin, baked soufflé floated in broth and known
as Schöberln were eaten during Beethoven’s lifetime (1770-1827).
The 1719 Neues saltzburgisches Koch-Buch does not mention them, but Prato
gives recipes. In the end, the chefs included Schöberln. They assumed
that lack of a recipe does not confirm absence of use, that food traditions
before the modern era were slow to change and that recipes in common
use were not included in cookbooks until years after their introduction.

Praktische
Konditorei-Kunst was a popular early twentieth-century guide for pastry
students and chefs who supplied baked goods to Konditorei, those tearooms and cafés specializing in pastry arts. The importance
of this sixth edition lies in its nearly complete set of cake decoration
templates and perforated parchment guides, the original supplements that
rarely withstood decades of use in professional kitchens.

Tidy,
indexed, and complete, the German manuscript, at right, from 1910 is
also barely legible. It is unusual among handwritten cookbooks
in that its pages are filled, cover to cover, by the same hand. More
often, these household cookbooks falter at some point, leaving large
sections completely blank. Translators are welcome to study it by appointment
in the chef’s library.

It is not surprising that Blank, a card-carrying member
of the Spam Fan Club, has an affinity for charcuterie, whether as sausages,
pates, terrines, cold cuts or other, more esoteric, preparations.